章鱼到底有多聪明？

章鱼到底有多聪明？

位于西班牙西北部拉科鲁尼亚的菲尼斯特拉水族馆，安东尼奥·克里贝罗是该水族馆的首席生物学家。过去十年来他一直在研究章鱼的行为和智力。但大多数人不知道的是，当我们研究章鱼时，章鱼也在研究我们。章鱼行为的这种维度并没有让安东尼奥感到惊讶。事实上，那些在水族馆里与章鱼打交道的人的工作就是把它们关在水族箱里。转身，章鱼就可以从一个水族祥里出来爬行出来，溜进另一个里去捕捉猎物，然后悄悄地回家。那么，这个好奇的生物到底是谁，它离开了舒适的水世界，似乎对我们感兴趣，就像我们对它感兴趣一样。安东尼奥知道这不是一只为了自由而逃亡的动物。这是一种正在绘制环境地图的智能生物。但章鱼到底有多聪明呢？安东尼奥要让小佩皮诺接受一系列测试。这一次，将无处可逃。大多数动物从父母那里学习寻找食物和躲避敌人所需的技能。其余的大部分都是本能的。真正智慧的标志是动物解决了新的问题。该物种的任何成员以前可能都没有弄清楚这一点。对于章鱼来说，从瓶子中拔出软木塞来捕捉螃蟹是小菜一碟。这几乎就像举起一块石头，在下面找到一块美味的食物。它是凭本能做的。但是打开螺旋盖罐子怎么样？自然界中没有螺旋盖罐子，也没有任何本能反应来帮助打开它。看他正在探索罐子。他正在触摸它。小章鱼好奇的手臂几乎和人类的手一样敏感和敏捷，探索新奇事物螺旋盖罐子的。在这里，章鱼似乎不是用本能而是用认知推理来解决这个问题，它认为如果螃蟹进去了，一定有办法把它弄出来。佩皮诺仔细思考这个问题，直到他成功。最难的部分是相信这一点，这个动物只是一种软体动物。就其家谱而言，这只幼年章鱼与牡蛎或蜗牛的关系比与任何其他动物物种的关系更为密切。作为对他辛勤工作的奖励，佩皮诺注射了毒药使螃蟹瘫痪，然后午餐时间到了。我在西班牙北海岸附近的大西洋捕捞章鱼已经有20 年了，我认为章鱼是一种非常聪明的动物。在我20年的工作生涯中，我见过一些奇怪的事情。有一次我设置了三个篮子陷阱。我在每一个里面放了两条沙丁鱼作为诱饵，将它们扔进水里。后来，当我把陷阱拉起来时，我惊讶地发现一个陷阱里有一只章鱼和六条沙丁鱼。那东西从一个陷阱里抓了两条沙丁鱼，把它们夹在胳膊下，然后又从第二个陷阱里抓了两条，然后游了起来。到了第三个陷阱，它爬进去并坐下来享用一顿盛宴。当我们在陷阱中捕获章鱼时，要么是因为它睡着了，要么是因为它感到困惑。我的意思是章鱼可以毫无问题地进出陷阱。它很聪明，只要它想要沙丁鱼，就能把沙丁鱼捞出来，然后带回家。龙虾陷阱可能会欺骗龙虾，但它们只是章鱼的食物储藏室。当你可以进去吃午饭然后离开而无需支付支票时，那还是陷阱吗？回到水族馆，安东尼奥·克里贝罗和他的团队正在做吃螃蟹实验更加努力地尝试。我们将在烧瓶中放入一些螃蟹。我们会强迫他们进来，但由于他们的尺寸，他们不可能从开口出来。章鱼可以够到它们，但无法将它们取出来。这样的问题连黑猩猩也无法解决。我们现在想看看章鱼将如何处理这个问题。这些螃蟹被迫进入烧瓶，这种情况在章鱼的自然栖息地中根本不会发生。章鱼一定认为他闻到了猎物的气味并且可以看到没有塞子让他与螃蟹隔离。但即使是顶部开启，这些螃蟹也绝对能出来。这意味着这个问题必须从另一个角度来解决，如果螃蟹太大而无法出去，那么章鱼就必须让自己足够小才能进去。虽然帕皮诺被关在里面，但他似乎并没有因为解决了进入烧瓶的问题而感到焦躁，他知道自己出去不会有任何麻烦。章鱼已经通过了一项重要的智力测试，出色地解决了新问题。在所有这些测试中，我们使用我们的明星章鱼帕皮诺。但随后我们用其他章鱼重复了这个实验，这样我们就可以证明不仅仅是观察一只高技能的个体样本。我们所做的就是对这组动物进行相同的测试，它们在解决问题方面都和帕皮诺一样出色。这清楚地表明，我们处理的不是单个标本的个体技能，而是普通章鱼物种固有的技能。

How clever is an octopus, really?

The Finisterrae Aquarium in La Coruna, in northwestern Spain, Antonio Cribero is the aquarium's head biologist. He's been studying the behavior and intelligence of the octopus for the last 10 years. But what most people don't know is that while we've been studying the octopus, the octopus has been studying us. This dimension of octopus behavior doesn't really surprise Antonio. In fact those who work with octopuses in aquariums have their work cut out for them just keeping them in their tanks. Turn your back and an octopus can crawl

out of one tank and slip into another to get its prey and then quietly return home. So just who is this curious creature who leaves the comfort of its watery world and seems as interested in us as we are in it. Antonio knows this isn't an animal who simply made a break for freedom. This is an intelligent creature who's mapping its environment. But just how intelligent is the octopus? Antonio is going to make little pepino undergo a slew of tests.  This time there will be no escape. Most animals learn the skills they need from their parents to find food and to hide from their enemies. Much of the rest is instinctual. The sign of true intelligence is when an animal solves a new kind of problem. Something that no member of the species may have figured out before. For the octopus removing a cork from a bottle to catch a crab is child's play. It's almost exactly like lifting a rock to find a delicious morsel underneath. It does it by instinct. But what about opening a screw top jar. There are no screw top jars in nature nor any instinctual response to help in opening it. Look he's exploring the jar. He's touching it. The little octopus's inquisitive arms are almost as sensitive and agile as human hands as they explore the novelty

of the screw-top jar. Here it seems the octopus is not using instinct but cognitive reasoning to solve this problem, thinking if the crab got in there there must be a way to get it out. Pepino thinks through the problem until he succeeds. The hardest part is to believe that this

animal is simply a mollusk. As far as his family tree goes this young octopus is more closely related to an oyster or a snail than to any other species of animal. As a reward for all his hard work, Pepino injects poison to paralyze the crab and then it's lunchtime. I've been fishing for octopus in the Atlantic off the northern coast of Spain for 20 years and I think that the octopus is a very intelligent animal.

I've seen some strange things in my 20 years on the job. One time I set three basket traps. I put two sardines in each one as bait and

dropped them into the water. Later when I hauled in the traps I was amazed to find one trap containing an octopus and six sardines. The thing took two sardines out of one trap, tucked them under an arm, then took two from the second trap tucked them under and swam

over to the third trap where it climbed in and settled down for a feast. When we catch an octopus in a trap it's either because it fell asleep or because it's confused. I mean an octopus can go in and out of a trap no problem. It's smart enough to get the sardines out and then take them home whenever it wants sardines. Lobster traps may fool lobsters but they're just food storage for an octopus. Where's the trap when you can get in have lunch and leave without paying the check. Back at the aquarium, Antonio Cribero and his team make their crab eating

experiment even harder. We'll put some crabs inside the flask. We'll force them in but because of their size it will be impossible for them to come out through the opening. The octopus can reach them but won't be able to get them out. Even chimpanzees were unable to solve

this problem. We now want to see how the octopus will deal with the problem. These crabs were forced into the flask a situation that simply wouldn't happen in the octopus's natural habitat. The octopus has to think he smells his prey and can see that there's no stopper

keeping him away from the crab. But even with an open top, these crabs are definitely not going to come out. This means the problem has to be attacked from another angle if the crabs are too big to get out, the octopus will just have to make himself small enough to get in.

Although he's closed up inside, Papino doesn't seem agitated having solved the problem of getting into the flask he knows he won't have any trouble getting out. The octopus has passed an important intelligence test, the solving of new problems with flying colors. In all these test, we use our star octopus, Papino. but we then repeated the experiment with other octopuses, so we could prove that e were not merely observing one highly skilled individual specimen. What we did was take this group of animals and put them through the same tests and they were all as good as Papino at solving the problem. This clearly indicates that we're not dealing with the individual skill of a single specimen but with a skill inherent to the species to octopus vulgaris.